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An
innovative design for a small-volume molecular imaging instrument by
University of Pittsburgh physicists has been hampered by a major
question: How does one measure a magnetic field accurately using the
resonance of single electrons within a diamond crystal? It’s too
difficult with normal computers, but the scientists think they may now
have an answer.

Atomic
force microscope cantilever tips with integrated heaters are widely
used to characterize polymer films, and to study fundamentals of
nanometer-scale heat flow. Until University of Illinois engineers
adapted such a tip to read electrothermal voltage, however, no one had
used a heated nano-tip for electronic measurements.

BriskHeat
Corporation has recently released the Centipede 2, a temperature
control system that economically controls multiple heaters in a system.
Each heater in a system has its own PID temperature controller and RTD
sensor, and individual PID control improves temperature uniformity
across a system.

Aerotech’s
new A3200 MotionPAC is a software-based programmable logic controller
that is completely integrated with the company’s A3200 motion controller
to increase programming efficiency, increase quality, and decrease
development time by 30 to 50%.

Cities are wasting the potential of smart technologies by failing to realize the value of their hidden infrastructure and digital assets. A report published by The Climate Group, Accenture, Arup, and Horizon Digital Economy Research at The University of Nottingham says opening up data and digital assets is critical to accelerating low carbon cities.

Individual molecules have been used to create electrical components like resistors, transistors, and diodes, that mimic the properties of familiar semiconductors. But according to Nongjian Tao, a researcher at the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University, unique properties inherent in single molecules may also allow designers to produce novel devices whose behavior falls outside the performance observed in conventional electronics.

Molybdenite, a mineral of molybdenum disulfide, was shown earlier this year to be an effective band gap semiconductor and a possible competitor to graphene. EPFL scientists have now made the first molybdenite microchip, boasting smaller and more energy-efficient transistors than traditional silicon.

Exotic materials called topological insulators, discovered just a few years ago, have yielded some of their secrets to a team of Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers. For the first time, the team showed that light can be used to obtain information about the spin of electrons flowing over the material's surface, and has even found a way to control these electron movements by varying the polarization of a light source.

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh
have invented a new type of electronic switch that performs electronic
logic
functions within a single molecule. The incorporation of such
single-molecule
elements could enable smaller, faster, and more energy-efficient
electronics.

There has been enormous progress in recent years toward the development of photonic chips—devices that use light beams instead of electrons to carry out their computational tasks. Now, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have filled in a crucial piece of the puzzle that could enable the creation of photonic chips on the standard silicon material that forms the basis for most of today's electronics.

Instead
of sending grandma a holiday photo of the family for her fridge,
imagine calling up the image on your computer monitor, clicking
“print,” and producing a 3D plastic model ready for hanging on the
holiday tree. According to a American Chemical Society editor, scenes
like that are fast approaching reality.

Scientists have demonstrated that a superconducting detector called a transition edge sensor (TES) is capable of counting the number of as many as 1,000 photons in a single pulse of light with an accuracy limited mainly by the quantum noise of the laser source.

A
Martian probe designed to examine one of Mars’ tiny moons, Phobos, was
imperiled just hours after a successful launch on Wednesday. Probable
failure of the craft’s orientation system has left it stuck in Earth’s
orbit and engineers have just days to reboot the system’s software
before battery power fails and the 13.2-ton spacecraft full of toxic
fuel falls to Earth.

Despite
dramatic improvements in the sound quality of loudspeakers over the
years, manufacturers still wrestle with the issue of “dead spots”. A new
noninvasive method to visualize sound propagation may help sound
engineers design out the deconstructive interferences that cancel sound
waves.

A
prototype of a new robot face that teams in Germany and Japan have
developed ingeniously solves the problem of how to make realistic human
features from a variety of angles. A projector accurately beams a human
face onto the back of the mask, changing the face on demand.

Researchers
in the U.K. have built a tank-like robot that has the ability to scale
smooth walls. It gets its ability from tiny mushroom cap-shaped fibers
on its treads that use van der Waals forces to adhere to flat surfaces.
Inspired by the feet of geckos, the robot could find use in power plants
or search and rescue.

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a prototype wireless sensor capable of detecting trace amounts of a key ingredient found in many explosives. The device, which employs carbon nanotubes and is printed on paper or paper-like material using standard inkjet technology, could be deployed in large numbers to alert authorities to the presence of explosives, such as improvised explosive devices.

Researchers of the Opto-electronic Materials section of
Delft University of Technology and Toyota Europe have demonstrated that
several
mobile electrons can be produced by the absorption of a single light
particle
in films of coupled quantum dots. These multiple electrons can be
harvested in
solar cells with increased efficiency.

A group of nuclear physicists and molecular scientists from the Université Paris Sud and Hamamatsu Photonics have demonstrated a new type of detector that can, for the first time, perform equally well at detecting spatial location and energy of target molecules.

The U.S.- and Singapore-based creators of the low-cost I-slate
electronic
tablet are preparing for full-scale production now that a yearlong
series of
tests has shown that the device is an effective learning tool for Indian
children.

Researchers from Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory have moved an individual electron along a wire, batting it back and forth over 60 times, rather like the ball in a game of ping-pong. The technique helps retain coherence, and could be beneficial in the development of quantum computing.

3M and IBM announced that the two companies plan to jointly
develop the first adhesives that can be used to package semiconductors
into
densely stacked silicon "towers." The companies are aiming to create a
new
class of materials, which will make it possible to build, for the first
time,
commercial microprocessors composed of layers of up to 100 separate
chips.

Pilots' "automation addiction" has eroded their flying skills to the point that they sometimes don't know how to recover from stalls and other mid-flight problems, say pilots and safety officials. The weakened skills have contributed to hundreds of deaths in airline crashes in the last five years.

Plastic-based
flexible electronics, produced in large volume using roll-to-roll
processing,
inkjet printing or spray deposition, is the "electronics everywhere"
trend of
the future, says Oana Jurchescu, assistant professor of physics at Wake
Forest
University. And the key to success in this market will be the low-cost
production of large molecular structures with excellent electronic
performance.

Fiber optic technology is well-established for long-distance data transmission, but efforts to use photons in microcircuits have been hampered the tendency for materials defects to deflect the signal. A new type of circuit component now allows photons to find their around these defects.